Daily Archive: March 13, 2018

New Delhi: Country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has substantially reduced charges for non-maintenance of average monthly balance (AMB) in savings accounts, which would benefit 25 crore banks’ customers, an official statement said here on Tuesday.

The revised charges would be effective from April 1, 2018. This step is taken keeping in view the feedback from various stakeholders, it said.

“We have reduced these charges taking into account the feedbacks and sentiments of our customers. Bank has always focused on keeping the interests of its customers first and this is one of our many efforts towards fulfilling customer expectations. Bank also offers its customers to shift from regular savings bank account to BSBD (Basic Savings Bank Deposit) account on which no charges are levied,” said PK Gupta, MD, Retail &#038; Digital Banking, SBI.

The charges for non-maintenance of AMB for customers in metro and urban centres have been reduced from a maximum of Rs 50 per month plus GST to Rs 15 per month plus GST. Similarly for semi-urban and rural centres the charges have been reduced from Rs 40 per month plus GST to Rs 12 and Rs 10 per month plus GST respectively.

The bank also clarified that customer always has the option of converting the regular savings bank account to BSBD account, free of charge, in case he desires to avail basic savings bank facilities without being subject to maintenance of AMB.

The bank has a deposit franchise having 41 crores savings bank accounts out of which 16 crore accounts under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana/BSBD and of pensioner/minors/social security benefit holders were already exempted. In addition, students upto the age of 21 years are also exempted.

The Supreme Court extended on Tuesday the March 31 deadline to link Aadhaar with a range of services, including bank accounts and mobile phone connections, till it delivers a final judgment on petitions questioning the validity of the law and subsequent rules making the 12-digit biometric number mandatory.

A five-judge bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the extension will not apply to government services and subsidies under section 7 of the Aadhaar act.

Section 7 is related to targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies, benefits and services. This means those getting subsidy under government schemes will be required to give their unique identity number.

The court restrained the authorities from insisting on Aadhaar for issuing passport under the Tatkal service. This was done after senior advocate Arvind Datar complained that the government had amended the passport rules in breach of the court directive not to make Aadhaar mandatory.

He showed the court colleague Vrinda Grover’s passport, which has been cancelled because she didn’t give her Aadhaar details.

“It is also directed that the same shall also control and govern the Passports (1st Amendment) Rules, 2018,” the court ordered, saying its directive shall apply to state governments as well.

The top court last December extended till March 31 the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various services and welfare schemes. The bench is currently hearing petitioners in the case after which the government will respond. A final judgment is unlikely before March-end.

On March 7, the bench indicated the possibility of extending the deadline. It expressed displeasure over banks, mobile phone companies and financial institutions continuing to coerce people to link their Aadhaar number for uninterrupted services.

A delay in extending the deadline would have implications on financial institutions, banks and stock exchange.

Attorney general KK Venugopal had said then that the Centre was not averse to extending the deadline but there was no such immediate requirement and advised the bench to see how the case progresses.

New Delhi: Income tax department has provisionally attached benami properties of over Rs3,900 crore in more than 1,200 cases, the finance ministry informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

In a written reply, minister of state for finance Shiv Pratap Shukla also said the tax department has identified more than 1,600 benami transactions till end-February.

“Show cause notices for provisional attachment of benami properties were issued in over 1,500 cases and provisional attachment has been made in over 1,200 cases. The value of properties under attachment is over Rs3,900 crore,” he said.

In another reply, Shukla said till date, in three phases of ‘operation clean money’, the income tax department has identified around 22.69 lakh persons whose tax profile was found to be inconsistent with the case deposits made by them during the demonetisation period

“Total case to the tune of Rs5.27 lakh crore has been found to be deposited in bank accounts in case of these 22.69 lakh taxpayers during demonetisation period,” Shukla said.

However, the unaccounted income in such transactions, if any, can be quantified only after completion of the verification/assessment process.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, interacted with the Collectors from the four States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, and Jammu and Kashmir. He reviewed the progress towards ODF (Open Defecation Free) targets in each of these States.